


when you're weary, feeling small

by YOONSONGHEE



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Angst, Bad Days, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Kim Mingyu-centric, Light Angst, M/M, and a good boyfriend/friend/whatever, jihoon is protective, mingyu is sad :(
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-25
Updated: 2020-10-25
Packaged: 2021-03-08 17:54:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,202
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27190685
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YOONSONGHEE/pseuds/YOONSONGHEE
Summary: Everybody has bad days sometimes, and sadly Mingyu isn't an exception.
Relationships: Kim Mingyu & Xu Ming Hao | The8, Kim Mingyu/Lee Jihoon | Woozi
Comments: 2
Kudos: 86





	when you're weary, feeling small

**Author's Note:**

> I told myself I would work on my unfinished works but instead of working on one of my multi-chaptered fics, I'm working on this one shot from the first half of the year.*sigh* why doesn't my brain want to cooperate.

Mingyu felt like shit.

It was their day off, and he was currently in bed facing the wall trying to find any energy to get up and eat, yet his body was exhausted, and his limbs felt too heavy to lift himself. It was due to the knot wedged in his chest that had been sitting there for the past couple of days. Usually, he would be able to push through it, however, that was when he had a schedule to attend, and he knew that he had to go otherwise the consequences would be worse.

Today though, with no schedule planned, his body remained in bed. From what he could hear, everyone had gotten out of bed, even those who usually spent the whole day in bed had gotten up at least once to eat or for human interaction. He couldn’t help but feel resentment towards them due to his current mood. Recently they had completed an interview where the host had made an insensitive comment about Mingyu’s skin which was supposed to be funny. It made him feel uncomfortable to the point where he couldn’t even fake a laugh, yet his members were able to burst out laughing with ease.

Perhaps, an evil voice in his mind whispered, they didn’t have to fake laughs and found what the host said funny. Although he knew this was most likely not the case and they were probably trying to save face and avoid any misunderstandings online, he couldn’t help but feel upset at the fact that the comment didn’t even phase them. Why would it? Mingyu’s skin tone seemed to be everyone’s favourite joke, something that you could laugh at, someone you could laugh at it appeared.

He heard the freak of the door opening, but he didn’t attempt to see who it was and instead kept deathly still hoping whoever it was would go away.

“Mingyu?”

Mingyu sighed internally as it seemed as if Minghao was going to coax him out of bed after all this time.

“It’s almost 4 pm, you can’t just stay in bed all day without eating anything or doing anything. Even Jihoon-hyung and Jeonghan-hyung got up.”

Mingyu summoned all his strength to turn around in bed to avoid worrying Minghao who was still nagging at him. After finally coming face to face with him, he saw the younger boy scanning his face in concern, probably noting how weary he looked. Pushing himself off the bed, he stretched an arm around Minghao’s shoulders.

“Alright I’m up now, you won”

“Damn right, I did. Now hurry up and go eat so you can grow big and strong.”

Minghao’s words had a teasing lilt to them which made him chuckle, and he tried to focus on that small burst of happiness instead of obsessing over the comparison between his tanned skin and Minghao’s lighter cooler skin tone.

•••

By the time Mingyu entered the kitchen to get food, it was ten to four, and all the members seemed scattered around. Wonwoo was sitting in the living room engrossed in a book while Chan and Hansol watched something on the TV. Soonyoung, Seokmin and Seungkwan were laughing among themselves while Junhui and Minghao discussed something in hushed mandarin. Jihoon was nowhere to be seen having retreated to his room while the three eldest had stepped outside for a while.

Mingyu simply wanted to get his food and go back to bed and continue wallowing in self-hate with no disruptions. With sluggish steps, he reached for the bread to make toast as it was the quickest thing he could think off and took the least energy. As he waited for his toast to finish, he zoned out, staring at the wall in front of him. The more he thought, the more ridiculous he felt; he had not left bed all day, yet he was feeling exhausted as if he had run a marathon. Even now, all he wanted to do was fall back into bed despite only being up for twenty minutes at the most, it indeed was pathetic. The ding of the toaster brought him out of his stupor, and he took out the toast and turned around to spread jam. However, when he turned around to get the jam, he realised it wasn’t in the place it usually was on the table, and when he looked in the cupboards, there was none there.

“Hey guys, where’s the jam?” Mingyu called out hoping for an answer.

“Oh, it’s here, hyung!” Chan quickly slid the jam across the table before going back to the TV.

Mingyu turned around as soon as Chan spoke but wasn’t quick enough to catch the jar before it ended up sliding off the table and smashing at his feet, jam now sticking to the floor. He looked at it in surprise, the loud sound setting off something in his mind as he felt his emotional walls begin to crumble. Even something as simple as making breakfast was too hard for him, something that he couldn’t do without any problems.

“Ya, Mingyu-yah did you drop it?” Seokmin yelled from across the room where he was sitting “Unlucky. You’re gonna have to clean that up now-”

Seokmin stopped his sentence abruptly at the sound of Mingyu throwing the plate and table knife on the table, making a loud clanging noise. Everyone turned to look at the tallest as he opened the food bin and threw his toast in with unneeded aggression before he turned and left the main area and went back to his room without cleaning up the mess or making eye-contact with anyone.

There was a tense silence for a couple of seconds after Mingyu slammed his door closed before everyone began moving again, Minghao going to check on Mingyu while Junhui went to clean up the mess in the kitchen, Chan helping him out of guilt. The rest of them all shared looks of concern and surprise while Jihoon came out of his room and entered the living room again.

“What just happened?” he asked, looking around the room for answers.

“Honestly, I don’t know hyung,” Seokmin answered, still looking in shock at where Mingyu had left.

Shaking his head, Jihoon went back to his room, trusting the rest of the members to resolve the issue at hand while Junhui and Chan finally finished cleaning up and went back to their respective tasks. Eventually, Minghao came back into the room and sat down next to Junhui on the couch diagonal to Wonwoo.

“Hey, Myungho” Wonwoo called, moving his book aside, “is Mingyu alright?”

“No idea,” Minghao sighed in exasperation “He refuses to open the door or even answer me. I’m just gonna give him some time to himself before I try again.”

Wonwoo nodded in understanding, yet he couldn’t help but feel bothered at Mingyu’s behaviour. The younger was usually much more lively and happy, especially after having a good night's sleep. He also loved to be in the kitchen or cleaning as it gave him something to do so for him just to walk away after that was really out of character for him. Around him, everyone else had continued, as usual, even Minghao had resumed his conversation with Junhui, so perhaps he was just reading too much into it. Shaking himself off, Wonwoo returned to his book, trying to chase away any lingering thoughts of Mingyu and his behaviour.

\---

A couple of hours passed until Seungcheol, Jeonghan and Jisoo came back home with dinner in tow. Everyone had cheered happily when the eldest three came home with takeout bags, with even Jihoon leaving his room to see what all the fuss was about and smiling when he saw food on the table. As soon as Jisoo placed the bags down, everybody began rushing to find a seat at the table only for Jeonghan to start complaining that he wouldn’t feed any of them if they continued like this. From there on out, it was a mostly peaceful event with the members taking their respective chairs and starting conversations with whoever was sitting next to them.

“Where’s Mingyu-ya?” Seungcheol asked as he started handing out food.

“I think he’s still in his room, I’ll go and get him” Hansol piped up, leaving the table.

The rest of the members continued, hardly acknowledging their absence, but when Vernon came back with no Mingyu in tow, they became confused.

“Where’s Mingyu, Vernon?” Joshua asked, straining his head to look behind him as if the tallest of the group was somehow hiding behind him.

“He doesn’t want to come out of his room. I tried to reason with him but he just told me to go away” Vernon relayed solemnly.

“Wait, but hyung hasn’t eaten all day, there’s no way he can miss out on dinner” exclaimed Seungkwan.

“Has Mingyu stayed in his room all this time?” Jeonghan paused in dishing out the food to look at the members who stayed in the house.

“He came out to try to make breakfast, but he dropped the jam by accident and stormed out,” Soonyoung explained.

“He’s been in his room since then,” Junhui added.

“So that’s what happened,” Jihoon said thoughtfully looking back in the general direction of where Mingyu’s room was “Is that the only time he’s left his room today?”

“Yeah, and that’s only because I forced him out of bed,” Minghao said before putting food in his mouth.

Everybody had begun eating in silence, the usual chatter and buzz of the dinner table not present as they all pondered on what was going on with Mingyu. Jihoon chewed his food slowly as he thought, the only sounds being the clattering of cutlery and the occasional quip for somebody to pass something. Jihoon had an idea of what was wrong with Mingyu, remembering something the younger man had said to him before. 

“Cheol-hyung, pass me Mingyu’s food please.”

Finishing his food, Jihoon waited for Seungcheol to get Mingyu’s food and pass it to him despite the questioning look on the leader’s face. The producer got up from the table and turned to go to Mingyu’s room, knocking on the locked door.

“Go away” a voice crooked from the other side.

“Mingyu, it’s Jihoon hyung. Open the door.”

There was a pause as if Mingyu was weighing the pros and cons before the door finally opened, but only enough for Jihoon to slip in.

Mingyu was sitting on his bed with his hair seemingly all over the place, zoning onto a random spot on the wall opposite him. Jihoon placed his food down on the bedside table and sat down next to the younger, studying his face to look for anything to betray what was wrong. 

“I heard you haven’t eaten all day so I brought your food here.”

Silence.

“Are you gonna tell me what’s going on or-”

“I’m tired hyung.” Mingyu sighed flopping onto his side so his face wasn’t visible to Jihoon.

“Ah, promotions are taking a toll on you that-”

“No,” Mingyu croaked out, his voice hoarse, “not that type of tired. I don’t know how to explain it but I’ve just had enough. I don’t want to get out of bed, I don’t want to eat and I don’t even want to talk to anyone. I still don’t know why I opened the door for you.”

Mingyu had begun to cry, his tears falling almost silently except for the occasional sniffle and he moved to hide his face in his hands as he began crying louder. He felt so embarrassed for breaking down like this even though nothing had happened today to make him feel that way. In the background, he could hear some shuffling and felt Jihoon’s hands pulling him into a sitting position. Again, he tried to hide his face only for Jihoon to grab his chin and gently force him to make eye contact. For a couple of seconds, Jihoon stared at Mingyu’s teary eyes before he brought the younger’s head to rest in the crook of his neck.

“We all have bad days Mingyu,” Jihoon whispered, pressing a kiss to the crown of Mingyu’s head, “it’s okay if you don’t feel like doing anything right now. Do you want me to cuddle with you?”

Mingyu thought it through for a while before nodding, giving Jihoon the go-ahead. 

“Okay, but first just take even a few bites of the food I brought otherwise it will take a toll on you later.”

Reluctantly, the younger raised his head and let Jihoon feed him a few bites of food, feeling his spirits lift ever so slightly whenever the producer praised him for managing a bite. Surprisingly, he managed to finish all the food which Jihoon put aside before coming back to lie down beside Mingyu. Despite being so tall physically, laying down next to Jihoon and feeling his comforting presence as he wrapped his arms around Mingyu and fiddled with his hair made him feel so small.

“Thank you so much hyung,” he whispered softly, nuzzling into Jihoon’s neck and pressing a grateful kiss to his cheek.

“It’s okay Mingyu,” Jihoon smiled sweetly at the younger, “I love being with you anyways.”


End file.
